‘feminism’

Badass Activist Friday Presents: Samhita Mukhopadhyay

It’s Friday, and we all know what that means! Interviews with your favorite badass feminists and activists. Whether social media queens and kings, creative artists, sex educators, or just kick-ass personalities, these people harness righteous anger, instigate movements and inspire cultural change. We’re here to honor them and their work, but more importantly, to highlight how we can all get up, plug in, and Just Start Doing.

This week, I had the pleasure of interviewing the awesome Samhita Mukhopadhyay, who you all probably know as the executive editor of Feministing. Aside from her writing for Feministing, she has also been published in news outlets such as The Nation, AlterNet and The Guardian UK, among others. Just a couple of months ago, Samhita’s first book, Outdated: Why Dating is Ruining Your Love Life was published, and two days ago Samhita, along with Amanda Marcotte, aired the first episode of their new podcast on CitizenRadio.

So, let’s see what she had to say!

Most of our readers will know you as the current Executive Editor of Feminsiting.com. How did you wind up on Feministing? What has that journey been like for you?

I originally started blogging at Feministing because I had bumped into Jessica Valenti who was an old college friend of mine and she essentially harassed me to join the collective. At the time the only blogging I had done was on Livejournal, so having such a public forum was new to me. I started it as something fun, but I don’t think I ever realized it would take off and land me here!

You’ve just released your first book, Outdated: How Dating is Ruining Your Love Life. Where did the idea for writing a book come from, and for writing this one specifically? How did you get started in the process?

Seal Press had actually contacted me directly because they liked my writing on Feministing and were interested in me writing a book on international feminism. At the time I was getting a MA at San Francisco State in transnational feminist theory, however, I didn’t feel like I was the appropriate person to write a book about international feminism. Instead, I pitched them the idea of writing an intervention to mainstream dating books as my best friend had recently given me a copy of Why Men Love Bitches, and said it was the holy grail of dating. I thought, there has to be something better out there for young women–so I set about to write it. Seal loved the idea and wanted to move forward with the project.

Did you have any surprises while writing the book? Any interesting encounters, or anything that you learned about yourself? How did you balance writing the book with your other work, and also with having a life outside of work?

Well, my good friend Courtney Martin said to me once, “we write the books we need to read,” and I think that was really true for me in writing this book. I realized all the ways dating was ruining MY love life and it was this weird moment of having to put my money where my mouth was and truly assess my intimate relationships–which was not an easy process, but I think is fairly apparent in the book. In terms of managing time, I had a really really hard time with it–half way through the process I realized that I probably have ADD–something I had never been diagnosed with before and that forced me to rearrange my life so I could have the space and time to write the book. It was not easy and I was on speaking tour at the same time. If I were to do it again, I would want to find some way to have writing the book be one of the only things on my plate.

In the book, you talk about the ways in which dating is presented in popular media and in self-help books, specifically those aimed at women, and the ways in which those myths are anything from ridiculous to damaging. Which of those myths do you find most pervasive? And how can we combat them?

One of the most pervasive myths in dating books is that female independence ruins romance and that women should act less threatening and downplay their successes because if they don’t they are going to die alone or with their cat. This has instilled a certain amount of fear amongst women when it comes to dating, that if they get more successful they will never find love. Demographic shifts have changed the way that relationships play out–that is a fact–but we can either lament the loss of traditional relationship structures or we can embrace a new world where women have a plethora of options. As far as I’m concerned there is no “going back,” so I would rather embrace life as an independent and satisfied woman than waiting around or pining for some guy that won’t accept me for who I am anyway. How do we combat these myths? By not feeding into the hype.

If you could give our readers one piece of useful dating advice, what would it be?

Spend some time getting centered and figuring out what you want in a relationship. We get so caught up in what other people want for us or what we should want that we often forget that we have needs and desires. And the best way to take time to figure out what you want is to spend some time single, something many people are afraid to do.

Thanks for your time and your great answers!

The Future of Feminism is the The Feminist Blogosphere

11.10.11 Jamie | No Comments »

Gloria Steinem graces the November 7th cover of New York Magazine
featuring the oral history of the beginnings of the feminist movement
through the founding and publication of Ms. Magazine not
to be missed. In the same issue Emily Nussbaum provides readers with an overview of the growing feminist blogosphere “bypassing the press” to promote feminist issues in “The Rebirth of the Feminist Manifesto.”

Touching on some of the same issues, Courtney E. Martin reported in the Nation in the story “You are the NOW of Now! The Future of (Online) Feminism” about the growing need to acknowledge where much of the important work is being done these days for feminism. In regards to online feminism Martin writes, “It can be—and it already is—the conduit between those fully devoting themselves to professional feminism and those who care deeply and want to be engaged citizens, but don’t have the luxury of working within the movement.” Nussbaum explains how the feminist blogosphere has changed the platform for the feminist cause by including the acceptance of porn, transgendered-rights and lobbying for gay marriage. (That said, I was definitely disappointed by the poor representation of queer feminist bloggers in both articles.)

As a feminist blogger I’m thrilled to see the feminist blogosphere given the credit it’s due, and to hear Martin articulate the necessary shift in paradigm from the current funding models which don’t support most online work. Martin notes, “Online organizing has infused new energy—not to mention drawn thousands of newly minted feminists—into the feminist movement, and yet the movement’s financial backers haven’t caught up to the new reality.” Shelby Knox, director of Women’s Rights Organization compares the rise of online communities and commentary on feminist issues to the consciousness raising groups of the sixties and added that the common “martyr complex” of many activists has got to the tossed should feminists continue to thrive in this new direction.

Both articles mention many of the same feminist websites to watch including Feministing, Radalicious, Jezebel, Hollaback, Tiger Beatdown and the F-Bomb. Certainly the movement behind screenings of The Line is part of this feminist blogosphere community. Additionally, The Line Campaign’s Circle of 6 Ap which recently won the White House #AppsAgainstAbuse Challenge and Hollaback!’s App may change the face of how individuals and communities respond to sexual harassment and assault.

Along with Martin I too wonder how long will it be before the political feminist funding model catches up to support the work of the feminist blogosphere? Though this remains to be seen, I’m excited to be a part of a feminist movement made more accessible and look forward to seeing how blogs, apps and other social media continue to shift the make-up and reach of the movement.

How I Stopped Worrying and Learned to Love the “F” Word

10.25.11 Anna | 2 Comments »

I knew that there was something wrong in high school.

I knew that for some reason—even though it seemed like girls were smarter—boys were inherently better. I knew that in most situations, girls worked much harder—in many cases sacrificing their friendship with each other because of the constant pressure of competition—but boys had it easier. Boys could still get whatever it was that they wanted, maintain their friendships, be popular, and probably smoke a lot of pot in the process. Boys could get away with a lot and eventually have it all, but girls had to make sacrifices and ultimately choose an identity.

I knew that it was unfair. I just didn’t have the word for it.

I didn’t hear the word feminism until I started listening to Ani Difranco. I didn’t know what feminism meant, or what a feminist was, but I knew I felt something in her impassioned vocals and poetic lyrics—a mixture of rage and sensitivity, a desire to express and create but also to destruct everything that ever felt unjust.

If feminism was the word that I felt with lyrics were pounding my ears late at night, driving myself home through winding hills somewhere in Northern California—the feeling that guys, popularity, and social pressure was insignificant in this wave of simultaneous power, rage, and love—I wanted to be a part of it. I wanted to be a feminist.

I didn’t know what feminist meant politically. Pro-choice seemed like a nice idea—what doesn’t seem democratic about choice? I had no conception of reproductive justice, the economic consequences of constraining reproductive choice, or really how to even use birth control in the first place—and I had no idea that the government was going after these rights, or that they were even rights to begin with. I knew I wanted to work—but I romanticized the idea of living in a box and being some kind of artist. I wasn’t thinking about breaking glass ceilings, but I wanted opportunities.

I wasn’t a political feminist. I didn’t know what that was. I was an angry feminist. I could sense that there was something systematic and universal—something that made it so that girls put on their makeup before their classes while guys hung out and listened to music. Something that made it so that girls had to always struggle to be desirable, while guys never had to try. Something that stratified, categorized, and grouped people based entirely on desirability. Something that seemed unnecessarily, yet inevitably pitted against women.

I thought that this translated into sex.

Some of my friends started giving blowjobs. I thought it sounded disgusting—how was that possibly pleasurable? It seemed demeaning too. I didn’t know that there was any female equivalent—and it didn’t seem like my friends knew this either. The furthest most people seemed to go in “hooking up” was some steamy, unreciprocated blowjob situation in the back of their parent’s car that ended in a negotiation of “spit, or swallow?”

Sex—or “going all the way”—seemed more or less the same, especially the first time. Word on the street was that you bled—a lot—and it hurt like a bitch. Even those who braved the second and third time didn’t report a dramatic improvement.

Of course, guys experienced none of this, further justifying my theory that there was a seriously fucked up skew in the balance of the sexes.

It was hard to imagine that sex would ever be pleasurable, especially when it seemed so skewed. A lot of my friends made a specific mission—some more successful than others—to lose their virginity before college. They wanted to arrive to college as sexual beings, ready to have one-night stands, and be seen as promiscuous and desirable.

However, they weren’t thinking of their own desire—they were imagining themselves as objects of desire.

So, now we’re in college.

Some of my friends went to more traditional colleges—they joined sororities and quickly discovered that parties were places where girls wore short skirts or shorts and high heels, not jeans and T-shirts like we did back home. Some other friends went to liberal arts colleges in the middle of nowhere—they lived seemingly idyllic lives, separate from the real world where they talked about Shakespeare, smoked pot, and fell in love with dreadlocked boyfriends, with whom they lovingly smoked pot and discussed Shakespeare. I went to NYU.

I always knew that I needed to be in a big city—I had an outspoken personality and a dirty mouth that couldn’t quite make peace with themselves in a small town in the Bay Area. Still, despite my “tough girl” exterior, and the Ani Difranco music pulsing through my veins, empowering me through justifying the unquantifiable rage I felt towards certain social institutions, something about me was very innocent. I wanted to solve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, solve world hunger, help victims of violence, and maybe find love somewhere along the way.

Girls around me were buying fake IDs from sketchy vendors, going clubbing, and meeting much older men. Many of my friends quantified their new “relationships”—some strictly sexual, some questionably more, all of them entirely antagonizing—based on each other’s background. “He’s a lawyer” or “He’s an investment banker” were far more common bragging mantras than “I love his fun personality” or “He makes me feel loved.”

In the same breath, the lawyers and investment bankers were most likely bragging that their new fuck buddies were “Nineteen with a tight ass.”

Something about it intrinsically bothered me. I didn’t have the language to voice that I found something inherently repulsive in how men were valued for their money and status while women were valued for their appearance and how much they were willing to accept their male partner’s authority. Something about it felt skewed and unjust, only this time dirtier and more hopelessly institutionalized than the unreciprocated blow jobs in the backseat of the parents’ car, so once again I pounded my ears with Ani Difranco, this time while walking the streets of New York City, trying to find answers that could be expressed in words.

In a lucky mistake, I came to school planning to major in International Politics. I quickly learned that there was more science than politics, and this line of study was filled with equations, and inarticulate foreign professors who cares more about their research than their classes. I went to my advisor, discussed my interest in human rights, and discovered the “Social and Cultural Analysis” program at NYU—I got to pick two concentrations—and one of them was Gender and Sexuality Studies.

My professor warned us on the first day—this class is going to get very personal.

We read Audre Lorde, Adrienne Rich, and bell hooks. We looked at women in the media, and brilliant news articles that contextualized my rage—rage that women were eternally objectified, air brushed, and pressured to adhere to photoshopped ideals of beauty to be valued. We looked at men and masculinity—how the media and advertisements institutionalize a gender binary that idealizes men for being forceful, macho, and sexually experienced. Women were even worse off—though they were always supposed to be beautiful, their sexuality rested on a fine line between desirable experience and whore—and their sexual desirability affected their professional lives as well.

Feminists wanted to break this gender binary. Feminists wanted to imagine the radical—transgressing who and what they were supposed to be, in order to co-exist as equals and put a past of subjugation behind them. I wanted to be a part of this.

We read “The Myth of the Female Orgasm”—and me (and plenty of other young women in the class, I’m sure) realized that pleasure is localized in the clitoris, which geographically is a bit of a (short, but still) trek from the vagina. It suddenly made sense that sex—a type of sex that was slightly more complex and a little more detailed, and—localized if you will—than the traditional college missionary position pounding—could be extremely pleasurable.

It also didn’t have to necessarily be with a man, although you didn’t need to be a lesbian to be a feminist.

For us young women, it was a radical—and refreshing—notion that men were not something that we needed but something that we could want. It was possible to have our worth imagined independently of whether or not we were dating a lawyer or an investment banker, but we were still allowed to want men as sexual partners and amorous companionship—and deign to call ourselves feminists.

I found feminism outside of the classroom. I found feminist books—by both legends and contemporaries who will become legendary. I found the feminist blogosphere. I found websites and campaigns—The Line Campaign being one of them—that created a brand of feminism that could be personalized, according to your specific needs, wants, and exact desires.

I found media as a way to convey feminism—and feminisms.

I found that feminism is about a lot of things, and a lot of issues. It is about economics and equality. It is about motherhood, family, and deciding how and when and if we wanted to negotiate these into our lives. Feminism is about justice and equality, and having great relationships—and really great sex—on our terms, and our partner’s terms.

SlutWalk: Why I Am Marching

9.27.11 Nancy | No Comments »

Dear Friends,

This Saturday, the International SlutWalk movement finally comes to New York City. After thousands of women marched along the streets of hundreds of cities around the globe, we will gather in New York City’s Union Square together. At The Line Campaign, we recognize that there have been many valid concerns and contentions over the name— primarily that it doesn’t speak to many women of color, or others who are offended or who aren’t in a position to parade under a “slut” banner.

“Slut Walk” as a name began as a challenge the notion that what might fall under a contemporary description of “sluttiness”—revealing clothing, flirting, drinking—does not equate consent, and never justifies rape. However, somewhere along the line it became about re-appropriating the word “slut” into an empowering term, something that many women of color have expressed feels dangerous and counter productive to combating a problematic history of racialized sexuality.

SlutWalk was never meant to be divisive—but its controversial name was both a blessing and a curse, gaining media attention, but inciting a politically theatrical debate that veered the movement off course from a universal struggle against victim blaming and started dividing women along race lines.

SlutWalk is a grassroots movement, often spearheaded by young people organizing for the first time. Every movement has its growing pains, and we hope that SlutWalk can work through these contentions and mature into an inclusive and ground-breaking movement that inspires conversations and further organizing that lead to real change.

At The Line Campaign we see the SlutWalk Movement as a tidal wave against rape culture and victim blaming, something that women of all backgrounds need one another’s support in resisting. Women have organized across the world, from Toronto to Buenos Aires to Mexico City, Kyrgizstan, and Morocco under the universal agreement that we, as women, have had enough. I hope that you will continue this movement by joining us to march from Union Square at 12 noon sharp; I will be speaking along with representatives from Radical Women, Red Umbrella, Queers for Economic Justice, Domestic Workers United, STARR, Sex Worker Outreach Project, International Socialist Organization, and other independent activists.

In Solidarity,

Nancy Schwartzman, The Line Campaign

For more about critiques of SlutWalk, read this article.

Badass Activist Friday presents: Marilla Li

8.12.11 Joey | No Comments »

It’s Friday, and we all know what that means! Interviews with your favorite badass feminists and activists. Whether social media queens and kings, creative artists, sex educators, or just kick-ass personalities, these people harness righteous anger, instigate movements and inspire cultural change. We’re here to honor them and their work, but more importantly, to higlight how e can all get up, plug in, and Just Start Doing.

We are particularly proud to present today’s activist, as she is one of our own: Marilla Li is a former intern for the Line Campaign and she is still on of the regular contributors to our blog.

Currently Marilla works as the Youth Services Coordinator at the Charles B. Wang Community Health Center in New York City.

Let’s hear what she has to say!

In your first post on the blog, you talked about some of the labels that you use for yourself and how you feel about them. How would you describe yourself now? Where are you now on your journey as a feminist/activist? And can you tell us a little bit about where you started out from?

First, let me acknowledge how honored I feel to be featured in the Badass Activist Friday series. I was reading through the list of past interview subjects – Heather Corinna, Andrea Plaid, Sady Doyle – and had a very dramatic feminist geek-out moment that, sadly, no one else witnessed.

Anyway. When I wrote that post in January 2010, I was in a very different place. I was graduating from Barnard College, wrapping up my senior thesis project, starting an internship at The Line Campaign, and participating in multiple student campaigns all at once. Everything was gaining traction and I felt like part of a major movement for change. I equated this movement to feminism and activism and, in the process, mistakenly laid down some assumptions about them.

I’ve been out of college for over a year now. These assumptions about feminism and activism no longer fit into my current surroundings. When I argue with people now about social injustice, in their eyes I am not being a feminist or an activist, but rather “radical”, “critical”, “angry”, or simply “difficult”. In this sense, Barnard sheltered me and my peers. It made an institutional choice to flaunt feminism and activism, throwing the term around freely on signs and posters, in texts and syllabi. It felt ubiquitous, secure and all-encompassing. Beyond college, however, feminism and activism feels like identifiers that need to be actively maintained.

My partner described my current state succinctly. He said, “You are a feminist and activist because you make these things a lifestyle. You never change the lens through which you view things.” To me, feminism is the desire to be treated as a person, an entire being, rather htan just a woman, and activism is the effort I take toward making this desire a reality. That said, feminism and activism make up a lifestyle that runs the risk of being very insular and alienating.

My feelings about my own labels have shifted a lot in a year. Instead of just being frustrated by people who don’t understand these labels, I step back, let the frustration pass, and focus on what to do in order to educate and empower those people. If I could talk to the person who wrote that blog entry a year ago, I would say, “You are right. Your peers are overthinking themselves into an identity-based paralysis. That’s frustrating. You’re smart. You’re proud. You’re fierce. But you’re also naive. You’re impulsive. You aren’t doing enough to empower the people who don’t have the same intellectual vocabulary you do. They haven’t been given the tools to build their identity the way you have. What are you going to do about it?”

You work at a community health center, where you program events to improve the health literacy of the Chinese immigrant population. How did you find your way into this job?

That’s an interesting story. For my senior thesis project, I researched the many ways that pharmaceutical marketing shapes (and is shaped by) different women’s attitudes toward oral contraception. My major was Anthropology, so part of my thesis required fieldwork. I spoke with my college’s health services staff for research. They referred me to the Charles B. Want Community Health Center, which is a non-profit, federally qualified health center. There, I met the Director of the Women’s Health Department. We only had one interview for my thesis, but that conversation blew me away. She told me about the community of undocumented Chinese immigrant women whose lives I had never touched, whose perspectives I had never once considered. She told me, ” Before these women came to the U.S., they lived under a one child policy, and were required to use long-term birth control methods like the IUD. What should they care about how the pill is marketed? The advertisements aren’t even written in a language that they understand.”

I remember being very shook by this initial conversation with this Director. I started thinking very hard about my own ignorance to the communities that exist under the radar. I couldn’t stop thinking about it. After my project ended, I emailed the Director of Women’s Health and said, “Here’s my resume. I want to work here. I don’t care what job you have available. Just give me something.” Bad career development tactic aside, I remember feeling at the time that if I didn’t start working at the health center, I wouldn’t be giving back and therefore wouldn’t be fulfilling my personal definition of activism.

How was your former position (working in women’s health) different from your current position (teen health)? How has the demographic you are addressing influenced your approach?

Without getting into too much detail, I will briefly explain that my transition from the former field to the latter was unplanned. I attribute the decision largely to someone upstairs, due to a combination of the federal budget cuts, hiring freezes, and poor management decisions. Sound familiar?

One significant difference between the women an the teens I serve is their set of priorities. Chinese immigrant women are unique in that they work long erratic hours, watch children and keep their families afloat (in the city and across the country) all at once. Women like these are machines of efficiency. At the health center, they arrive on time, register, hear a ten minute health education session, get the doctor’s advice, grab a prescription, and run. The teens, on the other hand, have to get dragged to the health center. They are much more preoccupied with fitting into their pre-existing social circles, with friends and at school. They are much less willing to come into the health center. In teen health, programcs have to reach youth in settings that they already know, which is why the Pediatric Unit implements more alternative activities in sports or in the arts. I’ve only worked at this unit for a moth, but I’ve seen Pediatrics program more interesting events – open mic talent shows, basketball clinics, public theater groups – than Women’s health would in a year.

Also, another significant difference is that I used to think that the women I served always felt stigma towards discussing health. When I speak to some of these women privately, however, they share some of the most amazing stories. For example, I once accompanied a pregnant patient on a hospital tour. While we waited, she shared that she had only been in the U.S. for a month, there was no one to support her through the pregnancy, and she was facing immigration problems because someone screwed up her medical records. “I don’t know who can help me,” she said. “If I don’t get a visa in the U.S., I’ll get deported after the baby is born, and the baby will have no one.” I wish I had more space to share more stories like these, but the reality is that every patient I meet has one. I’ve had a much harder time trying to build this kind of trust with youth, especially in a clinical setting such as at the health center. With that said, once I know the story, it’s usually just as compelling a story as the women’s. Building trust is always important and it is usually the first thing I try to do with individuals.

You conduct many of your workshops in Mandarin Chinese. Does this add another dimension to the work you are doing? How do you feel that your heritage influences your feminism, and vice versa?

This is a really hard question. It makes me feel obligated to explain the history of my learning Chinese as a second language. So I was born and raised in Ohio and later New York, but also spent some years studying and going to school in Beijing. Because of that education, my spoken Mandarin has no accent, but I can’t tell you how many times I have begun workshops or health education sessions and felt immediately categorized as “other” due to unspoken cultural markers. Most of my coworkers who aren’t from the U.S. call it a difference in “attitude” or “sensibility”. According to them and others I’ve asked, these discrete “attitudes” and “sensibilities” are discernible in subtle gestures such as a greeting or a facial twitch.

I think that anyone who is multilingual or who has studied linguistics understands and agrees that language is very wrapped up in cultural values. I read an ethnography detailing a society that considered cows to be a crucial element. The ethnographer realized the significance of this when he realized that the society had a million words to describe the cows by size, shape, color, hoof size, and so on. I haven’t done a lot of research ( anyone who knows otherwise, please correct me): but I don’t think that the concept of feminism exists in the Chinese language. If it does, it isn’t commonly used. I never once learned how to say “feminism” in Mandarin Chinese, at home or at work. I don’t know what this means. Is it substituted instead by “women’s rights” or “empowerment”?

This goes back to what I said before about recognizing one’s own privileges and ignorance, particularly the ignorance that comes from being unaware of one’s own intellectual vocabulary and identity-building tools. I’ve been trying to draw something productive out of recognizing these things. The fact that my job requires me to engage in a different set of cultural values certainly adds another dimension to who I am as a feminist and an activist. If feminism and activism are about communicating the concept of equality, then working with populations that faces so many communicative barriers inevitably calls those forms into question.

This isn’t a complication so much as an interesting challenge to one’s ability to communicate creatively. In order to reach people like those I work with now, I need to rely on more than spoken or written words. I also need to rely on emotional and visual markers to get my message across. Perhaps this is why media is such a powerful tool. It uses the visual to cut across very difficult barriers, such as culture or language, and creates emotional resonance with people who might otherwise live in isolation and estrangement.

Are you involved in any other projects that you’d like to tell us about? Particularly excited about a blog/movie/article/etc? Particularly upset about something going on in the world today? Please share!

I just listened to the 200th episode of WTF with Marc Maron, which is a really great podcast done by a very neurotic comic. I feel so connected to his podcast, which is both a validation and exacerbation of my own neuroticism.

Last month, the Department of Health and Human Services accepted new guidelines from the Institute of Medicine that will dramatically improve women’s health services.

Next month, a group of friends, some new and some old, and I will be submitting a zine on Asian women’s bodies to the Baltimore Zinefest.

Also, after submitting this entry, instead of watching preseason football, I plan to Google women’s rights groups in China as well as the Chinese word for “feminism”.

I remain excited about all these things.

Thank you for your time and your wonderful answers, Marilla!

SlutWalk Tucson

8.5.11 Amber | No Comments »

In April of 2011, I stumbled upon a surplus of powerful images of beautiful women bearing signs. The signs demanded the naive to see that rape is caused by rapists- not by a perceived sexy appearance, not by how much one has had to drink, not by sexual orientation, not by where one is located or the time of day. The signs demanded abolition of misogyny. The movement moved me.

Tucson is a relatively liberal city in Arizona. Friday, May 13th 2011 at 5pm an estimated 150 women and men gathered in front of the Tucson Police Department for SlutWalk Tucson. I had been anticipating that day from the moment I saw those images. I had promoted the event, the message behind it, begging everyone I knew to attend. I arrived there late with a group of friends, disappointed due to how I was originally planning to be there alone and early.

We walked just a bit behind. About five minutes into it, I received a phone call from a close friend in New York. She was crying. She told me a story. A girl had been openly raped at a party, and no one did anything about it. My friend was left in shock, utterly disgusted at her city, at a loss of hope when her peers told her “it wasn’t their place to say anything.” Despite what they said, she approached the girl, telling her she felt for her. The girl raged at her and pushed her. Was it that no one wanted to do anything about it? Did they not know what to do about it?

My friend did not know where I was, but as I was walking, it’s was as if I belly-flopped into a hot, steamy reality. I was incredulous, but suddenly I understood exactly what we were all doing here.

This is for us.

We are human and this is us being human.

I was angry. As the phone call ended, I arrived at the main library to find the participants gathering to tell stories over the megaphone. The group was small, and in my state of disbelief, I was sickened with my city for the event not being larger. It made no sense to me not to be here. I gathered myself and stood at the front with strangers, watching them cheer, marveling at their bravery as they told their stories.

This is for us.

We are human and this is us being human.To say we would ever ask to be raped is completely illogical! Awful! What are our morals anymore? This was for us. We must gather ourselves. Now we know where we stand, and now we figure out how to expand. SlutWalk Tucson opened us up, and now we can see we must keep moving together.

After SlutWalk Tucson, I attended the follow up meeting. With help from HollaBack! Tucson now has Safe Streets AZ and just recently we began Nightlife Safety Project Tucson. The programs are both very young still, but with no doubt subject to grow. The movement moved Tucson.

Wake up Feminists? Wake up Erica Jong!

8.2.11 Jamie | No Comments »

Erica Jong’s recent New York Times opinion piece “Is Sex Passé?” argues that her daughter’s generation idealizes monogamy and seeks control over the sexual freedom explored during her mother’s generation.

Dragging young feminists into the debate, Jung continues:

Lust for control fuels our current obsession with the deficit, our rejection of passion, our undoing of women’s rights. How far will we go in destroying women’s equality before a new generation of feminists wakes up? This time we hope those feminists will be of both genders and that men will understand how much equality benefits them.

Kudos for recognizing the need to welcome and incorporate men into the feminist cause. But does a desire for greater sexual control really mean a loss of lust or destruction to women’s equality?

Feminists are currently confronted with a landscape where women are constantly told have sex, enjoy it, but do it on your own terms. Understandably, in a world where girls are constantly taught how to be sexy but rarely sexual, this a confusing prospect. Men are told that no means no, but not given many more words of wisdom in navigating sexuality that isn’t mechanical in nature.

Our generation still enjoys one night stands and sexuality in the way boldly characterized in the pages of Jong’s 1973 novel Fear of Flying. I know plenty of lesbians who have hooked up in bathroom stalls on ladies nights and were quite proud and thrilled by the experience. Shows like “The Real L Word” open up the door to queer sex and sexuality for many who may not have any insight into that world. Katha Pollitt’s explains in her response to Jong’s article in The Nation,

there is really no evidence that young women, of whatever class, educational level or ethnicity, married or single, mothers or not, are less interested in sex than comparable women were in 1973, let alone in the 1950s.

It’s now a common expectation that both partners should be enjoying sex and exploring their own sexuality. Finally LGBT sex is becoming part of the conversation in a measurable way. The right to say yes, no, where and how sexually is among one of the rights most hard fought for by feminists.

And control is the key to communicating these desires. Control isn’t boring, or stale but rather it’s what allows for trust and growth. Control allows both partners to know their lines and to speak them, whatever they may be. For some control is a word used in BDSM play. For some control is discussing which body parts are sexually off limits during a time of physical transition.

Repression of reproductive rights is a terrifying move by those who are greatly opposed to allowing women and their partners control of their own reproductive decisions. Freedoms for women hinge largely on their ability to control and communicate own their choices and actions.

So to Erica Jong I say: young feminists are awake, thankful for the work that has been done by those before them and building a future with even more feminist freedoms.

Using Culture to Change Culture

8.1.11 Renee | No Comments »

Ahhh, the world of advertising: a world where false “ideals” that have long been outgrown by our progressive, intelligent minds are still shamelessly perpetuated; a world where, because brevity and memorability of the message is tantamount, offensive stereotypes serve as shorthand and run rampant; a world where political headway can be usurped and hard-won power can be coopted for marketers’ gain.

Such is the case in a recently released series of advertisements for Summer’s Eve douches entitled “Hail to the V.” Wrapped in a shiny veneer that seems to celebrate the vagina, a body part once so taboo its mere mention would be considered distasteful, a woman might at first find the galvanizing tone of these ads to offer a refreshing perspective. That is, a woman who is less media-literate than we readers of the WIYL blog. We sex-positive feminist-theory-informed critical thinkers know better, don’t we? We know full well that the true intent of these ads is to create and heighten anxiety about the (un)cleanliness of a self-cleaning body part. We know full well that the depictions of warring men and the passive female onlooker propagate absurd stereotypes and reinforce outdated sexist narratives. We know full well that the different versions of the ad produced for African American women and for Latina women are laden with racist assumptions that patronize the various facets of their target market. And we know full well that Summer’s Eve, owned by the C.B. Fleet Company, cares not for women’s triumph over the shame of naming and celebrating our vaginas, but rather for the dollars raked in by sales of a useless and unhealthy product.

But every once in a while, an advertisement breaks the mold. In a mere 30-60 seconds a message can cut through the crap through the use of humor, satire, edginess, and just plain bad-assness. And so, for my first blog post for Where Is Your Line, I’d like to highlight an ad that does just that by depicting a young woman drawing her line : Greatest Condom Commercial Ever

This ad rocks for so many reasons. Okay, so it’s not exactly an ad, but it delivers the same punch and shows the potential impact of thoughtful advertising. Its intent as a public service message is to encourage MTVs audience of teens and young adults to insist on wearing condoms when engaging in intercourse. It strikes me from time to time how strange it is that MTV can get away with speaking frankly about sex (and other taboo subjects) directly to young people in a way that educators are strictly forbidden from. When our institutions of learning are prohibited from keeping up with our media, it’s no wonder young people are confused. For its forthrightness about safe sex, I give this ad a major thumbs up.

And what’s even cooler? The empowered agent in this scenario is the woman! Although a young woman, perhaps college-age if I were to guess from the visual clues, this woman delivers the speech of a lifetime when she tells her potential sex partner no holds barred that his bullshit excuses for not wanting to wear a condom cost him the distinct privilege of getting it on with her! Can you imagine what a fabulous world we would live in if more young women actually exhibited the sex positive sex smart attitude this young woman demonstrates? How many times do I wish I had had the ovaries to give a speech like that?! But nobody was teaching me that skill when I was her age. Not my media, and certainly not my sex education curriculum.

Ahhh, the world of advertising. One mustn’t underestimate its role in creating and reflecting our culture and its values. Call me a wishful thinker, but I wonder if perhaps this short little snippet of a message, packing a punch with its fearless and funny portrayal of a shame-free sexual young woman, could be among the first of many examples of we feminists using culture to change culture. Founder and CEO of Breakthrough Mallika Dutt, who I had the privilege of seeing at the recent Women and Power Retreat at the OMEGA Institute, is the queen of this technique in India. Ignoring naysayers she embarked on an innovative mission to produce music videos for popular consumption that embody anti-domestic-violence messages. For real! And they are amazing. Her music videos, advertisements for the album Mann ke Manjeere: An Album of Women’s Dreams are also stand-alone artistic and social statements, and they have received widespread acclaim. The album even won the 2001 National Screen Award in India for best music video. Speaking the language of the populace, the videos are getting important messages out into the culture to CHANGE the culture by USING the culture’s mass medium.

For the love of Goddess, America, let’s get on board with this concept! It’s about time we harnessed the outlets to which people pay attention, and we have important work to do. It can begin with a funny portrayal of empowered female sexuality, and as Dutt has proven, it can even be effective to bring domestic violence into the public dialogue in a productive and heartfelt way. There will still be ridiculous attempts to usurp messages of female empowerment, like “Hail to the V,” but fortunately, we are smart enough to know the difference between social good and commodification. We can outsmart the media, use the very tools that have been used against us, and we can change our culture.

Badass-Activist Friday presents MATT IGNACIO of the National Native American AIDS Prevention Center

5.13.11 Trisha | No Comments »

It’s Friday, and we all know what that means! Interviews with your favorite badass feminists and activists. Whether social media queens and kings, creative artists, sex educators, or just kick-ass personalities, these people harness righteous anger, instigate movements and inspire culture change. We’re here to honor them and their work, but more importantly, to highlight how we can all get up, plug in, and Just Start Doing.

Feminism is an wide-ranging movement, and we at WIYL feel it’s so important to include activists working to broaden our perspectives and work in negotiating the complexity of intersectional oppressions, making the voices of marginalised groups heard. For this mini-series, we’ll be focusing on men and women who critique the gender hierarchy across all boundaries – cultures, race, age and medium.

So without further ado…

Here’s Matt Ignacio of the National Native American AIDS Prevention Center (NNAAPC)

Matt Ignacio, M.S.S.W., is a member of the Tohono O’odham Nation, a federally recognized Native American Tribe located in Southern Arizona. As a public health consultant, he has over 16 years experience promoting sexual health and drug user health advocacy, working mostly with minority populations. He most recently worked for the National Native American AIDS Prevention Center (NNAAPC) as the Director of Training and Development. Most recently he graduated as a fellow from the Center for Progressive Leadership Fellowship Program – Colorado State office in 2010.

You work specifically with HIV prevention and queer health issues – can you speak a little bit about how consent, sexual assault come into your work?

When working with Native American, Alaskan Native and Native Hawaiian (herein ‘Native’) communities, issues of: sexual assault, consent/rape, and domestic violence certainly come into play when trying to promote sexual health and wellness. Assault, rape, and violence are NOT traditional Native values. These acts can create tremendous amounts of shame and stigma for the victim. As a result, these acts often go unreported. Furthermore, on some of the Reservation and rural communities I’ve worked with, reporting these crimes to law enforcement not only negatively impacts the victim, but also negatively impacts immediate and extended family members as well. In some situations, it can also negatively impact the entire community! A way to address these issues is to provide culturally-specific education and empowerment opportunities, as well as providing culturally relevant resources and linkages to care.

 Are your personal experiences and identity important to your activism? Can you speak a little more as to how or why?

My experiences and identity are critical to my activism. Most of us have experienced some form of discrimination – the color of our skin, our sexual orientation/identity, where we are from, how we were raised, etc… I’ve certainly experienced and witnessed discrimination. Rather than sit back and be silent, I’ve had opportunities to be mentored by, work with and befriend some very outspoken Native leaders. They’ve all instilled the value of helping those most in need and to speak up and speak out for folks who do not have a voice. At the end of the day, my hope is that I’ve helped others do the same.

Sexual health is important for all, but what are specific problems that Native Americans, particularly those who identify as queer run into regarding education? What are the barriers to them speaking up, or getting access to the information they need? (Do you think that the dialogue around sex education can marginalize the experiences of minority youth?)

To a large extent, there continues to be a lot of stigma towards queer-identifying individuals in Native communities. Historically, every community member (gay, straight, etc…) had a value – a place or a role within the community. Today, for whatever reason, albeit historical trauma(s), colonization and/or adopting religious values – things have changed. This often makes it difficult to educate all Native community members in an honest and engaging way. As you can imagine, it is very difficult for those who are queer to access correct and life-affirming information. Interestingly, over the past decade, I’ve seen amazing Nation-wide movements by queer-identified Native people through community-based organizing, HIV/AIDS prevention efforts and political involvement and investment. It’s an exciting time!
 
Tell us about some people, activists, artists, writers, who inspire you, and how!

I’m inspired by and try to learn from leaders who fearlessly take action and lead by example. By no means am I fearless. In fact, it’s something I have to work on all the time. My parents and relatives are also prime examples of people who inspire me. I’m always fascinated by their stories of survival, resilience and humor. There’s a lot to learn from our own histories.

What have been the most rewarding and frustrating experiences working to advance getting appropriate, and culturally relevant information to ethnically and culturally diverse groups and minorities?

Some of the most rewarding experiences I’ve had advancing culturally relevant education is when individuals take the information I’ve presented to them, such as sexual health information, and then share it with their families or larger community. If I can play a small role in starting a dialogue that otherwise would not take place between friends, family and community – I’ve done my job. As far as ‘frustrating experiences,’ I suppose the length of time it takes to create lasting positive change. As progressively-minded people, we want change overnight – or at least I do! I have to remind myself to slow-down and learn from the process, not just from the outcomes.

What are the best things we as young readers, writers and activists do to ensure our sex education is meeting our needs and those of others? Any words of advice?

For myself, I force myself to ask the difficult questions and support those with little or no voice. We can’t meet our own sexual health needs if we don’t ask the difficult questions to our educators and/or health care professionals. Second, there is strength in numbers! Supporting those who are often ignored or overlooked is incredibly powerful, meaningful and socially responsible.

Badass-Activist Friday presents JESSICA SKOLNIK of SlutWalk Chicago!

5.6.11 Miranda | 2 Comments »

It’s Friday, and we all know what that means! Interviews with your favorite badass feminists and activists. Whether social media queens and kings, creative artists, sex educators, or just kick-ass personalities, these people harness righteous anger, instigate movements and inspire culture change. We’re here to honor them and their work, but more importantly, to highlight how we can all get up, plug in, and Just Start Doing.

So without further ado…

Here’s Jessica Skolnik of SlutWalk Chicago!

Jessica Skolnik is a Chicago activist, community organizer, musician, blogger, zinester, and all-around bad-ass. Together with Jaime Keiles, Jessica is co-organizing SlutWalk Chicago, an international grassroots response to widespread victim-blaming and rape culture, on Saturday, June 4th at the Thompson Center Plaza. Jessica is also an enthusiastic member of the Sexual Health Education to End Rape (SHEER) Collective, a new survivor centered, sex-positive coalition in Chicago, and the resident shredder of synth in the post-punk band Population. Jessica’s spent the last ten years organizing several communities for sexual assault survivors and administering an educational workshop on enthusiastic consent, rape culture and issues of sexual assault within small communities, specifically within punk communities.

What’s your philosophy of anti-violence?

Violence is not just personal but structural. We live in a society that glorifies violence to the point where many of us are inured to it. I see interpersonal violence as often encouraged and exacerbated by a struggle for control and power that stem from structural inequalities (racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, etc). Yes, we need to educate ourselves as to how to deal with specific and personal incidents, but we will not seriously change this society toward nonviolent ends until the entire playing field is leveled.

How did you become involved in anti-violence work and community organizing?

I am a survivor of multiple incidents of sexual assault and relationship violence. Combine that with growing up in DC in the early ‘90s with parents who encouraged my burgeoning interest in the DIY punk scene, and you have a recipe for a young riot grrrl who learned everything she could from the older activists at Positive Force and other activist collectives. I read as much as I could, learned as much as I could, and listened as much as I could.

Eventually I realized that activism would help me heal and allow me to help others. I realized that healing from trauma doesn’t happen in a vacuum, and connecting with other survivors is part of that process. I drew from my academic background in labor history and cultural studies, and I started thinking about how I could use my knowledge of organizing and education to change the dominant culture.

One of the sexual assaults happened when I was barely 13. I brought the incident to my counselor at school who encouraged me to report it to the police. It was one of the most dehumanizing experiences I’ve ever encountered with bureaucracy — and that’s saying something. They questioned me in a way that implied that I was at fault — I didn’t behave like a “good girl,” I wasn’t dressed “correctly,” I was sexually active at a young age and I had “led them on…” It was as far from the myth of the supportive, understanding police from Law and Order: SVU as possible, and there was no follow-up on my report.

After I digested the pain and dealt with the feeling of being violated all over again by people who were supposed to help me, I realized that traditional structures may not be the answer for everyone. I decided that I would spend the rest of my life involved with alternative community organizing by other survivors and active advocates.

I’m really interested in the strategy and skills behind working within subversive counter cultures to create culturally relevant narratives of sexual violence. What strategies do you use in your workshops to help create punk communities free from rape and sexual violence? What are some obstacles to anti-violence work specific to punk culture? Are there specific persistent attitudes or beliefs that have helped to normalize rape within punk communities?

The first strategy I use in my workshop model is to systematically debunk myths and narratives specific to punk culture, as well as the ones we’re more familiar with in mainstream culture, and examine how they are all connected. Punk communities are obviously not immune to rape culture, as much as we’d like to think we are.

One of the most pervasive myths about sexual violence in punk communities is that it’s not supposed to happen there, and that myth in and of itself is an enormous obstacle to ending violence. There’s this narrative that just because we’ve created this culture and community where the line between consumer and artist is less demarcated, where we control creativity as much as possible, that we’ve also created a world where oppression doesn’t exist. Anyone who’s spent even a cursory amount of time in the punk scene knows that’s not true. All the -isms and phobias from mainstream culture are still present, they just emerge a little differently – which makes them more difficult to recognize.

One thing that always baffled me is that, inevitably, when you bring up an allegation of sexual assault within the punk community, you’ll get an echo of voices asking why the person making the allegation didn’t call the cops. There’s a long history of punks resisting police brutality and police culture — it speaks volumes to me that the only time you’ll ever find punks trust the word of the police over the word of a fellow community member is when someone makes an allegation of sexual assault.

Nobody wants to believe that a member of a small, close community could perpetrate such a horrible act. There’s an immediate defensiveness that arises because the allegations are so serious. But violence happens at fests, within collectives, between activists and musicians… It’s hard to talk about rape when many of us don’t feel as if we have the right vocabulary for it. Regardless of our cultural participation in it, we still live in a world without adequate training about what consent looks like, what crossing that line looks like, and we need to trust the word of survivors. Yes, false accusations happen, unfortunately, but very rarely. The more we learn about consent and how to talk about it, the more equipped we are to support one another without immediately assuming that a survivor isn’t telling the truth.

How did you end up co-organizing SlutWalk Chicago? What do you have planned for SlutWalk in Chicago, and what do you hope the event will accomplish?

I first read about SlutWalk on Tumblr through various feminist blogs as the Toronto organizers were putting together their event. I was outraged and frustrated by the persistence of this institutional attitude that I’d encountered when I reported to the police in 1992, the attitude that a survivor is responsible for an assault if she or he doesn‘t act in certain socially prescribed ways. I was inspired by all the photos and reportage from the Toronto event, and when Jamie Keiles (my co-organizer) posted on her blog that she was going to take on the challenge of organizing a satellite SlutWalk here in Chicago, I didn’t even think twice about emailing her to offer my organizing help.

We’re planning a really wonderful event here in Chicago — not just a march but a rally with live music, speakers, tabling by some of our ally organizations, and possibly other forms of entertainment. We’re looking into burlesque and comedy at the moment. We want this to be a chance to meet up with likeminded folks similarly interested in dismantling the culture of shame. SlutWalk will be a celebration of the work the sex-positive rape crisis and survivors’ community has done to change that victim-blaming dynamic and a celebration of our future potential as a united movement going forward.

We also have two after-parties planned, as we’d like to keep the momentum going from the event through the day. We’ve organized a patio party for directly after the walk at Zella. My band happens to be playing a show that night with two other great bands, Martial Canterel and Anatomy of Habit, and that’s our official after-after-party. There’s more information on our website as our plans unfold!

Has the reception for SlutWalk Chicago been pretty positive? I’ve heard a lot of anti-violence activists question the use of the pejorative word “slut” for an event that’s supposed to be empowering… How do you respond to that?

I’m actually amazed by how positive most of the feedback has been — I was expecting a few more trolls, to be honest! Maybe they just haven’t come out of the woodwork yet, who knows. I credit the original SlutWalk in Toronto for paving the way and opening a dialogue.

The response from the anti-violence activist community has been roughly what I expected: positive but cautious. I was actually dubious about the use of the word “slut” when I read about the initial event and started organizing this one. At one point in my life, I was very much invested in reclaiming the word for myself, since I had been labeled a slut by others and found that reclaiming my enjoyment of sex was personally enormously healing. But that’s a goal I’ve found less personally profound over the years.

SlutWalk Chicago’s stance is that whether you find it personally empowering to reclaim the word “slut” or not, we stand with you. Using the SlutWalk name doesn’t just ally and align us with the work done by the amazing organizers in Toronto and all of the other satellites around the world, it really gives us a unique opportunity to talk about how sexual double standards and slut-shaming are cornerstones of rape culture and how a sex-positive attitude ties into the dialogue about consent, and I think that is enormously valuable.

What can our readers do to get involved with SlutWalk? And do you have any advice for starry-eyed activists in-the-making?

Email us at slutwalkchicago@gmail.com to get on our volunteers’ mailing list. Ally your organization, business or blog with us! Print out the posters we have available and hang ’em everywhere. Invite your friends and post all over your social media about SlutWalk, connect with us on any number of social networking sites (all linked from our main website). Enter our DIY SlutWalk poster contest! We’re organizing a poster-making session before the walk, details are on our website.

Show up on Saturday, June 4^th at the Thompson Center plaza (100 W. Randolph) for the SlutWalk step-off at noon! And if you are so moved, organize your own SlutWalk satellite in your city!

To activists-in-the-making: whatever cause and perspective you align yourself with, there is an enormous wealth of community resources and a world of movements to connect with, both locally and globally. Before you strike out on your own trying to build a movement from the ground up, check out the work other folks are doing and see how you can get involved or build off of it. Listen and learn, as well as contributing your energy and ideas!

Remember to take care of yourself at every step of the process. Personal healing and growth are as much a part of an activist’s journey as larger community and cultural change. Everything is connected.

The Line Campaign is proud to ally with SlutWalk Chicago. We support SlutWalk’s mission to promote education about sexual assault and to make it known loud and clear that victims of violence are never the ones at fault and no one asks to be raped.

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Empowering young leaders to end sexual violence.